


Gathering You Close

by syriala



Series: The Hug Series [14]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Hugging, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Pre-Slash, Scenting, developing feelings, post season 3B
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 16:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syriala/pseuds/syriala
Summary: Derek was standing beneath Stiles’ window and couldn’t bring himself to jump up.Sure, he knew that the Nogitsune was gone, everything was fine again, but. What if it wasn’t? What if Stiles still smelled like darkness and death?





	Gathering You Close

Derek was standing beneath Stiles’ window and couldn’t bring himself to jump up.

Sure, he knew that the Nogitsune was gone, everything was fine again, but. What if it wasn’t? What if Stiles still smelled like darkness and death?

Derek had clung to the hope that it was because of the tentative first possessive fingers of the Nogitsune that Stiles had smelled like he did right before Derek had left town, but what if that wasn’t true. What if the ritual Deaton performed with them changed something that was fundamental?

“I’m not going to hurt you, you know?” Stiles suddenly called down to him. “You can come up. I’ll keep my distance, I promise.”

He sounded sad and when Derek looked up he wasn’t meeting his eyes at all.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Derek told him, right before he jumped up the wall and entered Stiles’ room through his window.

“Yeah, right,” Stiles scoffed. “You’re not afraid of me, that’s why you’ve been standing in my damn backyard for the last half hour.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Derek repeated, this time with more vehemence but Stiles was still not looking at him.

“I threw you into a wall. I killed a whole lot of people. Maybe you should be afraid of me,” Stiles told him while looking down at his own hands. “Maybe you should even hate me.”

“I’m not though. I never was. And I never could,” Derek said, carefully breathing through his mouth, too afraid of what he would smell if he used his nose.

Stiles outright laughed in his face this time, and there was an ugly twist to his mouth.

“You’re a shit liar, Derek, did anyone tell you that yet? Look at you, you seem so tense I could break you by simply laying a hand on you.”

Derek made an effort to shake out his limbs, but going by the twist in Stiles’ face it didn’t really make anything better.

“It’s not about that,” Derek eventually said. “Remember the last time I was here, when I said you smelled dead?” Stiles flinched at the memory. “I figure it was the Nogitsune I was smelling back then, so it should be all gone now but….” He trailed off and Stiles met his eyes for the first time that day.

“You think it might not. That dead is just something I am now.”

He sounded so defeated and broken and Derek couldn’t take it anymore. He took one deep breath through his nose and it was still there, the Nogitsune’s rotten smell, but it was fading, almost gone, especially around Stiles.

There was the deep, rich smell of something that was purely Stiles and Derek shook with relief.

“What’s the verdict,” Stiles asked and he tried for nonchalant but there was fear underlying his words.

Derek was at his side with three big steps and he just gathered Stiles up against him, holding him close and breathing him in. He had missed this smell, missed it more than he maybe should but he didn’t care right now. He just held Stiles and basked in his smell, rubbing the side of his face all over Stiles’ temple and cheek.

Stiles had his arms around Derek’s middle and he really wasn’t protesting but after a few minutes he said “So, I get it. You don’t hate me and you’re not afraid of me.”

“Never,” Derek said, but it came out kind of muffled since his face was still buried in Stiles’ hair.

“I’m still sorry,” Stiles whispered and squeezed Derek hard. “About everything I did.”

He sounded choked up and Derek didn’t want to hear another word.

He gently pushed Stiles back, just enough to be able to look him in the eye.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t you. You didn’t decide to go around and kill anyone. You didn’t plan this. Something did that for you, something took control of you, and it took away your choice. This is nothing you have to be sorry for.”

He said it with enough conviction for both of them, since he was pretty sure it would take Stiles a long time before he could accept that. If he ever could.

Stiles didn’t say anything to that, but Derek could see the tears spill over right before he went in for another hug.

“I’ve got you,” Derek mumbled into Stiles’ hair and they stood like that longer than Derek had debated coming up in the first place.

It was everything both of them needed.

Derek left a few hours later, reassured that Stiles was fully himself again, and Stiles reassured that Derek wasn’t afraid of him. Most of that had been conveyed through touch and not words, but that worked better with them anyway.

When Derek came home, he was relaxed and unguarded and so he didn’t immediately notice anything wrong at his loft.

It was only when he saw Stiles’ six fingers that he realized that Stiles was the dream and not Kate.

He would have preferred it the other way around and that was his last thought for quite some time.


End file.
